Starting with verse 6, he first tells us how God has opposed Himself to Job:
"Now then that God has put me in the wrong
and closed His net about me.
Behold, I cry out, ‘Violence!’ but I am not answered;
I call for help, but there is no justice.
He has walled up my way, so that I cannot pass,
and He has set darkness upon my paths.
He has stripped from me my glory
and taken the crown from my head.
He breaks me down on every side, and I am gone,
and my hope has He pulled up like a tree.
He has kindled His wrath against me
and counts me as His adversary.
His troops come on together;
they have cast up their siege ramp against me
and encamp around my tent."
- Job 19:6-12
Then, in the next section, God isolates Job from even his family:
"He has put my brothers far from me,
and those who knew me are wholly estranged from me.
My relatives have failed me,
my close friends have forgotten me.
The guests in my house and my maidservants count me as a stranger;
I have become a foreigner in their eyes.
I call to my servant, but He gives me no answer;
I must plead with Him with my mouth for mercy.
My breath is strange to my wife,
and I am a stench to the children of my own mother.
Even young children despise me;
when I rise they talk against me.
All my intimate friends abhor me,
and those whom I loved have turned against me."
- Job 19:13-19
This is part of the process of effectual calling, the events God uses to break down our unbelief, and to eliminate whatever competing source of support we maintain. In Job's case, he depended on his relatives for sustaining strength in life, so God separated those relationships. The same with his friends. This is an application of the First Commandment: "You shall have no other gods before Me" (Exodus 20:3). Someone might object that Job never worshiped other deities. Nor do most modern Americans pray to other gods. Yet, to God, another god doesn't just mean Thor or Ganesha. Rather, to Him another god is any support we have in life for not depending on Him as our only God, whether that deity is self-confidence or supportive family. In His eyes, they are competitors, and He removes them from the lives of His elect, until we throw ourselves on Him alone: "I am the LORD; that is My name; My glory I give to no other, nor My praise to carved idols" (Isaiah 42:8).
And in the case of Job, this work was successful:
"I know that my Redeemer lives,
and at the last he will stand upon the earth.
And after my skin has been thus destroyed,
yet in my flesh I shall see God,
whom I shall see for myself,
and my eyes shall behold, and not another.
My heart faints within me!"
-Job 19:25-27
Now that Job has been deprived of his crutches, he is able to see the glory of God. And, where he had been experiencing such unmitigated sorrow, now he experiences hope, the sure hope that he has been given new life, and will thus have his place in the resurrection, where he will see Jesus his Redeemer, with the same eyes with which he now sees only the sky.
This is the question that every unbeliever faces: when you experience things like this, and feel the tug on your heart to turn from your unbelief (the meaning of repentance), how long will you resist? How long will you watch what you value in your life get pulled away? Surrender now, before the price goes up.
Jesus experienced this separation, but in the opposite order. He had perfect fellowship with His divine Father for unknown ages before He was born: "Father, I desire that they also, whom you have given Me, may be with Me where I am, to see My glory that you have given Me because you loved Me before the foundation of the world." (John 17:24). But He also experienced the loss of His companions (Matthew 26:31, Mark 14:50). And, just before He died, He experienced separation, for the fist time ever, even from His own Father: "My God, My God, why have You forsaken Me?" (Matthew 27:46; compare Isaiah 59:2). He experienced that separation on behalf of everyone who believes in Him. He was separated so that we can be reunited with His God, who is our God.
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